Terraria s combat and exploration features are both great.
Minecraft vs terraria. In terms of modding while minecraft does beat terraria terraria is in its baby steps for modding when comparing to minecraft and it s still really good. On top of this terraria puts a much greater emphasis on combat and exploration than minecraft. Also terraria provides the gamer a real challenge unlike minecraft where the only boss is the ender dragon. That s another difference by the way.
Tl dr minecraft for freedom to build and explore terraria for freedom to fight and progress. In terraria there are many more items and mobs to defeat. Terraria has many different crafting stations which can get frustrating. The main difference between both games is that terraria is a 2d game while minecraft features a 3d perspective.
It does not have explicit goals but there are a lot of subtle ones to go after from neat equipment you can craft to items you can find in the wild that give you neat abilities. Even though minecraft has a larger world size terraria far outstrips minecraft with the amount of items and bosses in it. Terraria just requires you to have the ingredients and be near the correct crafting station. Terraria is a far better game than minecraft.